Review of refugee mental health and wellbeing: Australian perspectives

This review covers refugee mental health and wellbeing within the Australian context to assist psychologists who provide services for, or who conduct research with, refugees. It provides a brief overview of the refugee movement, prior to examining evidence relating to the impacts of pre‐displacement, displacement and resettlement factors on psychological adjustment in the resettlement phase, and the systemic and sociopolitical factors that influence the process of adaptation during resettlement. Australian findings suggest that mental health and wellbeing outcomes are influenced by a complexity of pre‐displacement, displacement, resettlement and systemic factors; the detention or award of temporary residence to refugees who are already experiencing psychological distress on arrival are cases in point. Limitations of the findings are considered. More research into the combined, pathwise relations between the psychosocial pre‐determinants and psychological sequelae of the refugee experience is required. Finally, suggestions for the development of practice, training and ethical guidelines are offered.     

Training parents to help their children read: A randomized control trial

Background . Low levels of literacy and high levels of behaviour problems in middle childhood often co‐occur. These persistent difficulties pose a risk to academic and social development, leading to social exclusion in adulthood. Although parent‐training programmes have been shown to be effective in enabling parents to support their children's development, very few parent interventions offer a combination of behavioural and literacy training. Aims . This paper (1) reports on a prevention programme which aimed to tackle behaviour and literacy problems in children at the beginning of school, and (2) presents the effects of the intervention on children's literacy. Sample . One hundred and four 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children selected from eight schools in an inner city disadvantaged community in London participated in the intervention. Methods . This is a randomized control trial with pre‐ and post‐measurements designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention. The behavioural intervention consisted of the ‘Incredible Years’ group parenting programme combined with a new programme designed to train parents to support their children's reading at home. Results . Analyses demonstrated a significant effect of the intervention on children's word reading and writing skills, as well as parents' use of reading strategies with their children. Conclusion . A structured multicomponent preventive package delivered with attention to fidelity can enable parents to support their children's reading at home and increase their literacy skills. Together with the improvement in child behaviour, these changes could improve the life chances of children in disadvantaged communities.     

Internationalizing the counseling psychology curriculum: toward new values,competencies, and directions

The changing world in which we now live requires that counseling psychology alter its training curriculum assumptions, content, and methods to prepare students and faculty for meeting the challenges of life in the global community. Global problems such as poverty, migration, overpopulation, international war and violence, rapid urbanization, and cultural disintegration are posing new challenges for service professions that are no longer suited to ethnocentric values, content, and interventions. Adjustment syndromes such as alienation, culture shock, acculturation, identity conflict and confusion, and migration stress are now emerging as major problems for counselors in schools, colleges, industry, clinics and private practice. New competencies are needed. The present article offers 50 different ways to assist in the internationalization of the counseling curriculum, with specific recommendations for professional psychological associations and department of psychology curriculum content and extra-curricular activities, and universities. The article calls upon counseling psychologists around the world to help create a new professional and global consciousness that can advance our field by addressing the problems we face and restoring dignity to those we serve through the provision of more informed and culturally sensitive services.     

Non‐linear structural equation models with correlated continuous and discrete data

Structural equation models (SEMs) have been widely applied to examine interrelationships among latent and observed variables in social and psychological research. Motivated by the fact that correlated discrete variables are frequently encountered in practical applications, a non‐linear SEM that accommodates covariates, and mixed continuous, ordered, and unordered categorical variables is proposed. Maximum likelihood methods for estimation and model comparison are discussed. One real‐life data set about cardiovascular disease is used to illustrate the methodologies.     

Robust ANCOVA using a smoother with bootstrap bagging

Many robust analogs of the classic analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) method have been proposed, some of which are based on some type of regression smoother. A method that first appeared in this journal, which is relatively simple and performs well in simulations, is based on a running interval smoother combined with comparing medians or 20% trimmed means. It makes no parametric assumption about the regression lines and does not assume that the regression lines are parallel. A possible way of improving the efficiency of the running interval smoother is to use bootstrap bagging and a minor goal here is to report some results supporting this approach. The major goal is to consider how ANCOVA might be performed when bootstrap bagging is used. Simple extensions of extant approaches that use some type of bootstrap method were found to be unsatisfactory. However, a basic percentile bootstrap method was found to perform well in simulations. And a reanalysis of data dealing with teachers' expectations about the cognitive ability of students illustrates that bootstrap bagging can make a practical difference.     

Perceived political self‐efficacy: Theory,assessment, and applications

Political efficacy is addressed within the framework of social cognitive theory and a new measure to assess perceived political self‐efficacy is presented. Three studies document the validity of the new scale of measurement. The first study (N = 1673) examined the psychometric properties of the scale in accordance with classical test theory. This led to the identification of a unidimensional factor structure, including perceived political self‐efficacy in promoting one's own political opinion, in sustaining the political programs of the party to which one belongs, and in monitoring one's own political representatives' commitment. The second study (N = 632) further confirmed the internal and construct validity of the scale; criterion validity was also investigated using several indicators of political interest and participation. The third study (N = 1176) showed that politicians holding offices have higher levels of perceived political self‐efficacy than partisans and voters, further corroborating the criterion validity of the scale. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motor abstraction: a neuroscientific account of how action goals and intentions are mapped and understood

Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience shed light on the existence of a common neural mechanism that could account for action and intention to understand abilities in humans and non-human primates. Empirical evidence on the neural underpinnings of action goals and on their ontogeny and phylogeny is introduced and discussed. It is proposed that the properties of the mirror neuron system and the functional mechanism describing them, embodied simulation, enabled pre-linguistic forms of action and intention understanding. Basic aspects of social cognition appear to be primarily based on the motor cognition that underpins one’s own capacity to act, here defined as motor abstraction. On the basis of this new account of the motor system, it is proposed that intersubjectivity is the best conceived of as intercorporeity.

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